Ismail Serageldin

Organizations

Ismail Serageldin has been one of the most important voices calling for attention to the issues of water throughout the last decade. In August 1995, he warned that "if the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water—unless we change our approach to managing this precious and vital resource". That cry was given wide attention in Newsweek and CNN and other media and helped raise the attention level on water issues.

He helped put the issue on the front burner of policy debates, and called—along with Anders Wijkman of UNDP—for a new Global Water Partnership to overcome the fragmentation that was making a shambles of the pious declarations of a comprehensive approach to the management of water issues. The partnership was launched with a secretariat in Stockholm and Serageldin was elected its first chairman.